It finally feels like summer!! I made the daring move and changed out our winter tires for the summers, so I’m either brave, a dreamer, or confident that we won’t be seeing any more winter for a while. This is somewhat contentious around here, as even as recent as last Saturday there were flurries in the air.

Since the weather is warming up, I’m biking to work, through epic amounts of road construction, and also decided it would be in my and my lawn’s best interest to stop working Saturdays. This and the fact that my Beta testing group is going to be in full swing, which means I’ve got an additional 70 people to design programs for. No biggie. I got this.

In honesty, this was a decision I’ve been wrestling with for quite a while. Essentially, it reduces me to 4 days of work training clients (still managing about 40 sessions a week), but gives me some additional time to work on all the other things I have going on, between speaking engagements, writing stuff, and now the Beta group, not to mention my awesome distance coaching clients.

Speaking of….er, speaking, Tony Gentilcore and I will be taking our tour on the road, hitting up London in September and Washington, DC in October. Here’s a slick promo video I put together to outline the type of stuff we cover and how awesome it is to have guys like us coach you in the deadlift and other sick training concepts.

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We’ll be presenting at The Third Space Soho in London September 13-14, and a to be determined venue in Washington on October 18-19, 2014. For more info and to register, click HERE. Registration info is towards the bottom of the page for each event.

Speaking of Washington, I’ll be in Washington a couple of weeks prior to this workshop, and Tony will be there too, as we’ll both be speaking at the NSCA Personal Trainers Conference. This is looking like a pretty stellar lineup of presenters, so I guess they had to bring the average down somehow. I mean, how did I manage to get into an event where guys like Gray Cook, Chad Waterbury, Adam Bornstein, and a bunch of other A-list fitness world celebrities are presenting? What’s funny is Tony and I are presenting opposite of each other, same time in different rooms. You can choose your sides now. It will be like the Twilight “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” losers, except we’re way cooler than either of those two, and you’re so much better looking than their fans. You also probably deadlift more and can do way more chinups.

It’s being held in Washington October 3-4, and based on previous events I’ve been to, they always bring their A-game as organizers. To get more info and to register, click HERE. Last time I was at an NSCA conference, I swung a kettlebell right into the path that Todd Durkin would soon occupy, and was reflexive enough to abort a near disaster. I’m pretty sure he could have taken it though.

Speaking of kettlebells, I filmed a sweet kettlebell tutorial video for my premium group with WeightTraining.com, and thought it was too good to keep held back from everyone, so I wanted to share it with you here today.

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Speaking of WeightTraining.com, I’m getting ready to release my 4th month with the group, and if you wanted to join in on the fun with full workouts, video tutorials, everything loaded onto the WeightTraining.com app for easy use in the gym, and of course little ol me designing your programs, all for less than a dollar a day, just click HERE for more info.

Speaking of less than a dollar a day, you know the old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Sometimes recovery is as important in a training program as the actual act of lifting heavy things and crushing fist pumps in the mirror while staring at your own biceps. Don’t act like you don’t do that!!!

Recovery is one of those concepts that take a very small investment of time and occasionally money, but make a massive difference in your workout quality. As a result, I wrote an article for BodyBuilding.com on the topic, and broke down my top recovery methods that I use and recommend to my clients. You might find one or two surprising. Click HERE to check it out.

Speaking of stuff you might find surprising, Bret Contreras and I are in the process of putting together a blog post series on each others sites all about exercise induced coregasms, which in Leyman terms is the ability to receive sexual stimulation from basic exercises such as leg raises, rope climbing, and other highly core intensive movements. THose who have had it said that it ranged from uncomfortable to embarrassing to downright painful. We got into this discussion at the Fitness Summit in Kansas City, and we came to realize neither of us really knew the exact mechanisms of how this would happen, but then it raised some interesting questions:

Is this a good thing or a bad thing if it happens? If it’s bad, what does it indicate, and what are the options available to deal with it? If it’s a good thing, how do we help more people get the benefit?

What are the anatomical mechanisms involved? In speaking with a physio who specializes in pelvic floor and womens’ health, she was aware it happened, but then isn’t sure either, but knows there’s a couple of disorders that present in conjunction with it, so again, is it a symptom or a causative thing?

Is there a way to positionally coach someone to avoid having it happen if it’s a problem, or is it down to individual differences and requires more intensive treatment?

This is just the tip of the iceberg, so prepare yourself for a bunch of new investigation into this phenomenon, and also hopefully some actionable things people can do if they have it or I guess want to have it, depending on whether it’s something beneficial or not.

Speaking of whether something is beneficial or not, I love getting my geek on. My wife tends to look at me all glassy eyed and far away when I start talking about femoroacetabular retroversion and thoracic ring defects or anything related to training that doesn’t directly benefit or involve her, so I tend to just speak and she ignores me. Love is awesome.

The reason I’m mentioning this is Eric Cressey and Mike Reinold just released their newest video series, Functional Stability Training of the Upper Body. This has been an awesome trilogy from these two guys, and I reviewed their pieces on core training HERE and the Lower Body HERE.

Honestly, given that these two guys are so well known for shoulders and arm care among MLB baseball players, and have probably collectively helped train and manage over a billion dollars of athletic contracts, I’m surprised they didn’t start with the arm instead of making it their finale. That said, I guess you always want to end on a high note. I’ve only made it through 2 of the videos in the series so far, but I can honestly say they have delivered big time on their info in this one. It’s research oriented, backed with practical breakout sessions, and jam-packed with usable info anyone can take and integrate into their training programs and help their clients or patients stay strong, stabile, and mobile all while getting their beast mode on.

===> Click HERE for more info <===

Speaking of being mobile and in beast mode, I stumbled across this great article HERE about whether you even move or not. It’s in the same vein as the “Do you even lift?” concepts, but is geared more towards being a mobile SOB. It’s also pretty funny and hits the nail on the head.

Speaking of hitting the nail on the head, this week is extra special because Lindsay and I are in the initial stages of getting approval to build a new house. We’re meeting with the builder tonight to sign the purchase agreement, then getting the financing in place in the next couple of days. We’ve saved the down payment in only 10 months, which considering the size of the house we’re looking to build it’s pretty amazing. I’ve never been good at saving for stuff, so this was a massive exercise in the art of self denial, especially when ti would be much more fun to put some sick spinning rims on my Dodge Caliber. CUZ THEY SPINNIN THEY SPINNIN THEY SPINNIN!!!!

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Language isn’t suitable for work, church, doctors offices, or anywhere that old ladies could look at you with disdain.

Speaking of old ladies who look at you with disdain, I was watering my lawn last night with my shirt off. That is all.